Sigh. New S3 on the way :(

[Leo_N]

Well, one of my S3s has gone to the shitter. The Tivo customer service rep did a great job of asking me a few questions to make sure it wasn't something else.

I had started having problems about a month ago. The S3 started rebooting randomly and often. It would also freeze up fairly regularly. Had been hoping that it wasn't a hardware problem and that 8.1 would fix it, but no :(

Tried a bunch of stuff also, running without cable cards, running without network hooked up, redoing setup for antenna only, then resetting for cable, tried with the original drive and with the 750GB weaknees drive, pretty much everything others had tried on this board. Some days the thing would reboot 4 times an hour, and other times it would run for 3 days straight with no problems. The freezes are about a once every other day occurrence.

Oh well, hopefully this replacement will work as well as my other S3. Kudos to the decent CS rep who answered my call anyways, that went well.

[ashu]

RIP.

Good luck with the replacement.

So the CS rep had no problem with you saying you had an additional drive, then? ;)

[TydalForce]

Almost sounds like it was overheating

Hopefully the new one will be more solid for you!

[Leo_N]

RIP.

Good luck with the replacement.

So the CS rep had no problem with you saying you had an additional drive, then? ;)

Heh, didn't tell him that part, but it started happening right before my new drive. I was hoping it was a just a bad drive to begin with. Kept on doing the same crap, that is when I waited for the 8.1 update. Got that and still going haywire, so I put the original back in and let it update, now still having the problems, and I just called them this morning.

[Leo_N]

Almost sounds like it was overheating

Hopefully the new one will be more solid for you!

I was concerned about that, so I was checking the temp pretty often, was never above 44 degrees C and normally was hovering around 42.

[snickerrrrs]

Was it covered by warranty? :confused:

[CraigHB]

Sorry to hear that. Good to hear TiVo was helpful. My S3 is still pretty new so I'm hoping it holds up okay. I bought mine from Costco and they'll take it back anytime for any failure. I wonder how that would work since my unit has lifetime on it.

[Leo_N]

Was it covered by warranty? :confused:

$49.00 charge which included next-day shipping to me. My credit card is also being charged $799 until I return my faulty S3 (there was also an option of me sending mine in before they shipped the new one out, that was just the $49.00 charge then, no $799)

[Leo_N]

Sorry to hear that. Good to hear TiVo was helpful. My S3 is still pretty new so I'm hoping it holds up okay. I bought mine from Costco and they'll take it back anytime for any failure. I wonder how that would work since my unit has lifetime on it.

I'd imagine you'd probably lose lifetime doing a trade like that, unless you got really lucky with a Tivo CS rep. Never shopped at Costco, too bad to see they are changing that return policy. I'd imagine anything bought under the old policy is grand-fathered but you may want to check that out.

[ashu]

I'd imagine you'd probably lose lifetime doing a trade like that, unless you got really lucky with a Tivo CS rep. Never shopped at Costco, too bad to see they are changing that return policy. I'd imagine anything bought under the old policy is grand-fathered but you may want to check that out.

No. It's a store/warranty (by store) return. You NEVER EVER lose Lifetime when that happens. You just have to call TiVo and tell them. They may ask for receipt details as proof. Don't abuse this because they HAVE said they track warranty returns/Lifetime free transfers!

No different than a monstrously long extended warranty from best Buy.

[BillL]

$49.00 charge which included next-day shipping to me. My credit card is also being charged $799 until I return my faulty S3 (there was also an option of me sending mine in before they shipped the new one out, that was just the $49.00 charge then, no $799)

My TiVo is doing the exact same thing! Its awful. Did they send you a refurbished unit?

[Leo_N]

No. It's a store/warranty (by store) return. You NEVER EVER lose Lifetime when that happens. You just have to call TiVo and tell them. They may ask for receipt details as proof. Don't abuse this because they HAVE said they track warranty returns/Lifetime free transfers!

No different than a monstrously long extended warranty from best Buy.

Ahh, cool.

[Leo_N]

My TiVo is doing the exact same thing! Its awful. Did they send you a refurbished unit?

Yes, that is what they are sending, should be here sometime today. Tracked the DHL shipment last night and said it was on schedule for today.

[BillL]

Yes, that is what they are sending, should be here sometime today. Tracked the DHL shipment last night and said it was on schedule for today.

Does that $50 cover the shipping of your old TiVo back to them?

[Leo_N]

Does that $50 cover the shipping of your old TiVo back to them?

Nope, it doesn't, but that'll probably only be like $5 or $6 via UPS ground.

[ashu]

Nope, it doesn't, but that'll probably only be like $5 or $6 via UPS ground.

Add a 1, or more likely, a 2 in front of that 5 or 6 (my estimate, insured, would be $25+)

[Leo_N]

Add a 1, or more likely, a 2 in front of that 5 or 6 (my estimate, insured, would be $25+)

Nope, I just ran it through my UPS shipping program. $5.64 for no insurance, $10.04 for insurance included at $800. Perhaps the USPS would be that expensive, I'm not sure, I almost never use the post office for anything other than first class mail. UPS is just much faster/cheaper/reliable.

Granted, I also have daily pickup, so that would cost an additional $5 or a trip to the nearest UPS drop center at no charge except for gas money.

[BillL]

Nope, I just ran it through my UPS shipping program. $5.64 for no insurance, $10.04 for insurance included at $800. Perhaps the USPS would be that expensive, I'm not sure, I almost never use the post office for anything other than first class mail. UPS is just much faster/cheaper/reliable.

Granted, I also have daily pickup, so that would cost an additional $5 or a trip to the nearest UPS drop center at no charge except for gas money.


Man, this series 3 is getting expensive. $800 plus $200 (lifetime) plus $50 plus $10! All for a REFURBISHED machine! What a rip. Hope the refurb lasts more than a couple years for us.

[pl1]

Man, this series 3 is getting expensive. $800 plus $200 (lifetime) plus $50 plus $10! All for a REFURBISHED machine! What a rip. Hope the refurb lasts more than a couple years for us.That is AFTER 90 days you realize. I had a return within the first 30 days and not only was it a new machine, but tiVo picked up the freight both ways. From 30-90 days, I think you pay the freight and it may or may not be a refurb. 90 days-1yr, you pay the $50 for labor. It's all in your manual. (Except they don't mention how much the labor might be.)

[Leo_N]

Man, this series 3 is getting expensive. $800 plus $200 (lifetime) plus $50 plus $10! All for a REFURBISHED machine! What a rip. Hope the refurb lasts more than a couple years for us.

I suppose welcome to the world of electronics. I don't feel bad about the $50 at all seeing as I was out of the actual 90 day warranty.

<edited> Heh, I see the poster above me just beat me to the 90 day punch.

[BillL]

I suppose welcome to the world of electronics. I don't feel bad about the $50 at all seeing as I was out of the actual 90 day warranty.

I dont feel bad about the $50 either. Mine started rebooting from day one and I should have just returned it then. My mistake. My only hope is that the box lasts at least five years because I opted for the lifetime.

I have had bad experiences with refurbs in the past. They usually die right after the year is up.

[pl1]

I dont feel bad about the $50 either. Mine started rebooting from day one and I should have just returned it then. My mistake. My only hope is that the box lasts at least five years because I opted for the lifetime. If it makes you feel any better, I've had 8 TiVo's come through me and not one has died. I've replaced hard drives and all, but that's something you can do yourself, or pay for, but it has no effect on the lifetime. Really, the most common failure would have to be the hard drive, just like on a PC. Plus, even after the warranty is out, I believe they are very reasonable to deal with (in order to preserve your lifetime.) Also other places will repair them, like weaknees.com and 9thtee.com, leaving your lifetime intact.

[BillL]

If it makes you feel any better, I've had 8 TiVo's come through me and not one has died. I've replaced hard drives and all, but that's something you can do yourself, or pay for, but it has no effect on the lifetime. Really, the most common failure would have to the hard drive, just like on a PC. Plus, even after the warranty is out, I believe they are very reasonable to deal with (in order to preserve your lifetime.) Also other places will repair them, like weaknees.com and 9thtee.com, leaving your lifetime intact.

Were any of those 8 TiVos reburbished? In my mind, refurbished can mean someone's defective TiVo that needed somthing resoldered on the motherboard.

I can care less about replacing the hard drive. That is simple.

[pl1]

Were any of those 8 TiVos reburbished? In my mind, refurbished can mean someone's defective TiVo that needed somthing resoldered on the motherboard. I can care less about replacing the hard drive. That is simple.Well, only one, a series 1 unit that I bought with no hard drive from (I think) weaknees for $89 or something. I probably bought that two years ago and it is still going strong as far as I know. (I gave it to my Uncle and I have not heard of any problems with it.) It has a lifetime on it. But, besides that, I'll concede that all of my S2's and S3's are brand new.

[entropy]

Add a 1, or more likely, a 2 in front of that 5 or 6 (my estimate, insured, would be $25+)

Nope, I just ran it through my UPS shipping program. $5.64 for no insurance, $10.04 for insurance included at $800.

Indeed. I have a FedEx account, and ground shipping through my account is CHEAP.

Even if you ship only one package a year, it's well worth getting a free FedEx account (or someone else's, but I hate UPS more than any other company I have ever dealt with.) With FedEx, people who have an account can also bill shipments to your account. I did this when I ordered my projector, and paid $13 in actual shipping charges instead of the seller's $25 flat charge.

~ Kiran <entropy@io.com>

[BillL]

I called TiVo and am getting a refurb in the mail ASAP.

Does anyone know if TiVo will divulge what kind of repairs were performed on your new refurb. I would certainly be more comfortable with a unit that had a faulty harddrive as opposed to some major soldering repairs.

[Leo_N]

Indeed. I have a FedEx account, and ground shipping through my account is CHEAP.

Even if you ship only one package a year, it's well worth getting a free FedEx account (or someone else's, but I hate UPS more than any other company I have ever dealt with.) With FedEx, people who have an account can also bill shipments to your account. I did this when I ordered my projector, and paid $13 in actual shipping charges instead of the seller's $25 flat charge.

~ Kiran <entropy@io.com>

Suppose your mileage may vary, as I am pretty much in the opposite boat as you. Bad experiences with FedEx, I won't touch them unless a customer specifically asks for them. And UPS also allows collect and 3rd party billing as you describe. Two of my customers have this permanently setup.

[CraigHB]

As far a refurbs, I believe they go through the same qaulity assurance testing as the new ones do. If there is something wrong with it, I doubt they would do much other than replace major components, i.e. the mainboard, the disk drive, the power supply, etc. In that case, you could feel confident that a refurb is going to be as reliable as a new one.

[BillL]

As far a refurbs, I believe they go through the same qaulity assurance testing as the new ones do. If there is something wrong with it, I doubt they would do much other than replace major components, i.e. the mainboard, the disk drive, the power supply, etc. In that case, you could feel confident that a refurb is going to be as reliable as a new one.


I dont know about that. My refurb is coming straight from Solectron. I think they repair stuff at the cheapest cost to them.

[wrh30]

As far a refurbs, I believe they go through the same qaulity assurance testing as the new ones do. If there is something wrong with it, I doubt they would do much other than replace major components, i.e. the mainboard, the disk drive, the power supply, etc. In that case, you could feel confident that a refurb is going to be as reliable as a new one.
How can you tell if the unit you receive is refurbished? Is there something stamped on the box

[GoHokies!]

As far a refurbs, I believe they go through the same qaulity assurance testing as the new ones do. If there is something wrong with it, I doubt they would do much other than replace major components, i.e. the mainboard, the disk drive, the power supply, etc. In that case, you could feel confident that a refurb is going to be as reliable as a new one.
Not to mention that even a refurb S3 can't be but more than a few months old at this point.
I've never had a problem with a refurb - I guess I could understand people's issues with a refurb if they have had issues with them in the past.

[ashu]

But but but ... refurbs have cooties!

[CosmoGeek]

I've bought many refurbs in my day. They come with the same warranty and are cheaper. If you are buying it up front, I think refurbs are a great way to save money.

Put it through it's paces just like you would a new unit, and if it passes the test, then I don't think it makes any difference. I think that most of the returned S3's probably had nothing wrong with them. The problem was probably that the cable company couldn't get the cable cards installed and configured correctly. I've always felt that TiVo could reduce the unnecessary returning of S3's through better troubleshooting documentation and by working more closely with the cable companies, but that is MHO. In any case, there are so many cases where perfectly good S3's get returned that your chances of getting one of these is high. There are also S3's where there was a very specific failure that gets repaired. These are also going to be good as new machines. I think the least likely but real concern is that you get one of the other machines, where there is something wrong but TiVo fails to detect or fix it and so a defective machine goes back out the door. You are probably more likely to get one of these with a refurb but you can also get a new unit with an equally subtle issue, so the burden of checking out the unit is the same.

[greg_burns]

How can you tell if the unit you receive is refurbished? Is there something stamped on the box

Pure speculation...

Of the two refurbs I've owned, both have had TSN like XXX-0012-XXXX-XXXX.

Back when I was trying to transfer lifetime to a NIB Tivo via website (same model as my stolen one (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=4735052&&#post4735052) ), it kept saying hardware was different. :confused: Both were 540, but the NIB was not a refurb. Later when I got another refurb (with 0012) it didn't have that error, but another.

Anybody else have (or not have) a refurb with XXX-0012-XXXX-XXXX TSN?

Seems unlikely that could/would change the TSN for a refurb, but I've always wondered that.

[BakedBeans]

Well, one of my S3s has gone to the shitter. The Tivo customer service rep did a great job of asking me a few questions to make sure it wasn't something else.

I had started having problems about a month ago. The S3 started rebooting randomly and often. It would also freeze up fairly regularly. Had been hoping that it wasn't a hardware problem and that 8.1 would fix it, but no :(

Tried a bunch of stuff also, running without cable cards, running without network hooked up, redoing setup for antennal only, then resetting for cable, tried with the original drive and with the 750GB weaknees drive, pretty much everything others had tried on this board. Some days the thing would reboot 4 times an hour, and other times it would run for 3 days straight with no problems. The freezes are about a once every other day occurrence.

Oh well, hopefully this replacement will work as well as my other S3. Kudos to the decent CS rep who answered my call anyways, that went well.


By any chance were you using a Wifi Adapter and did not have the 8.1 update? My S3 would freeze 4-5 times daily, and randomly reboot when i had the wifi adapter connected. Only fix was to use ethernet. Once 8.1 came out the wifi problem seems to be resolved... though I can only use the wifi adapter in the top usb port. Will not work at all (It powers on) but will not connect to my network in the bottom USB port.

[Leo_N]

By any chance were you using a Wifi Adapter and did not have the 8.1 update? My S3 would freeze 4-5 times daily, and randomly reboot when i had the wifi adapter connected. Only fix was to use ethernet. Once 8.1 came out the wifi problem seems to be resolved... though I can only use the wifi adapter in the top usb port. Will not work at all (It powers on) but will not connect to my network in the bottom USB port.

Nope, hard-wired. Plus I tried without any wires hooked up except the HDMI cable, then tried just the component. No ethernet, no cable, and still got the freezing, rebooting. It was definitely a bad box.

As an update to the refurb unit. It has been up and running now since Friday with 0 problems. Unit looked brand new, even had the pull-away plastic strip over the front display area, so I don't know if it really was brand new, or a refurb. Either way, I'm happy so far.

Note: it does have the yellowish-green tint OLED instead of the orange one, so now they don't match, but not a big deal seeing as they are not in the same room.

[entropy]

Note: it does have the yellowish-green tint OLED instead of the orange one, so now they don't match, but not a big deal seeing as they are not in the same room.

They've changed the color of the OLED? That seems like a weird thing to do on such a new machine. I'm not sure whether to be glad I got an orange one or annoyed I didn't get a green one. Oh well--one more reason to save up for a second Series 3 in the fall....

~ Kiran <entropy@io.com>

[CraigHB]

One thing odd I've noticed on my OLED is that the clock flashes once in a while. The other night, when I was doing a wishlist search (arrgh, slow), the lower half of the clock dissappeared for a few seconds. Don't know if that means my panel is going out or if that's something they all do.

[ashu]

They've changed the color of the OLED? That seems like a weird thing to do on such a new machine. I'm not sure whether to be glad I got an orange one or annoyed I didn't get a green one. Oh well--one more reason to save up for a second Series 3 in the fall....

~ Kiran <entropy@io.com>

It's been reported and discussed before - there are at least two (and maybe three, if some folks' greenish yellow is indeed more yellow than others') in different batches. Only the earliest ones had Orange, and there was a longevity/reliability issue with those (or so I vaguely remember having been semi-officially mentioned)

[Leo_N]

Final update: The replacement Series3 I received has worked flawlessly, I have received the $799.99 deposit back onto my credit card, all with no hassles.

Thanks TiVo, experience couldn't have been any better unless the first one hadn't gone bad in the first place. ;)

[Shawn95GT]

I've purchased 3 S3s. Two worked perfect out of the box and are still cruising along fine today.

My 2nd S3 though was a nightmare. I bought it from TCF Store. It failed shortly after coming out of the box. TCF Store was great to deal with and exchanged it. The replacement lasted about two weeks before wierd stuff started happening. Having the banner show a channel change but the tuners both stuck on some channel and one tuner not clearly tuning anything analog was the final straw.

I was outside the exchange window for TCF Store so I dealt direct with Tivo. I opted for the 'no cost' exchange since I wasnt' in any hurry to get it back. This replacement has been working great (knock on piano finish).

I love my S3s.

[Leo_N]

I've purchased 3 S3s. Two worked perfect out of the box and are still cruising along fine today.

My 2nd S3 though was a nightmare. I bought it from TCF Store. It failed shortly after coming out of the box. TCF Store was great to deal with and exchanged it. The replacement lasted about two weeks before wierd stuff started happening. Having the banner show a channel change but the tuners both stuck on some channel and one tuner not clearly tuning anything analog was the final straw.

I was outside the exchange window for TCF Store so I dealt direct with Tivo. I opted for the 'no cost' exchange since I wasnt' in any hurry to get it back. This replacement has been working great (knock on piano finish).

I love my S3s.

Shawn, it seems you need to update your sig!! Still showing only 2 Series3s.

Think I might have to get a 3rd when I get around to refinishing the basement.

[Shawn95GT]

Shawn, it seems you need to update your sig!! Still showing only 2 Series3s.

Think I might have to get a 3rd when I get around to refinishing the basement.
#3 Lifetime S3 is now at Mom's, so I don't count it :). I've got to get her account setup now that the lifetime transfer has happened.

I forgot to mention - when I did the exchange with Tivo they told me to send just the box, no remote, no cables etc as I'd be getting a refurb. They couldn't promise that the refurb would come in the original packaging so I kept that too.

I felt bad when the new one arrived... full retail kit, and it was brand new as far as I could tell.

Thanks Tivo!